Want a album featuring the most unique, creative and top notch progressive death metal releases of 2021? Well, The Lylat Continuum are a upcoming band from Denver, Colorado have really set their bar sky-high to create such a artistic vision and polished pieces of extreme metal in recent memory for the genre. As a fan of the genre, progressive death metal has seem to have its fair share as many either love it or despise due to the challenged songwriting, complex instrumentals and demanded skills featuring technical proficiencies but as years grown overtime, the genre has become a instant favorite upon many extreme metal fans amongst the likes of the essential artists whether it being the Human era of Death, Still Life by Opeth, Piece Of Time from Atheist or to later half of the 2010’s such as Earthborn Evolution by Beyond Creation, Flesh Prevails by Fallujah or Omnivium by Obscura, the genre has came such a long period of time to see what bands can offer to the spectrum.
Now, its safe to say Ephemeral isn’t just a standardized album judging by the music, but to hear a record that’s released independently by the band is where the highlight of the album truly shines. Musically, if you were to take the band’s influences from Pink Floyd, Between The Buried And Me, Focus lineup of Cynic, The Faceless and debut full-length from The Contortionist with a Si-Fi, authentic, jazzy, abstracted style of progressive death metal with little hints of technical death thrown in the mix, you get two marvelous genres put into one to make a ultimate lifeform and truth be told, it works magnificently well. Everything from the soothing bass tones, steady guitar melodies, accessible drums, commendable vocal performances and production being sharp and precise, Ephemeral is also a conceptual record about a space pilot individual who finds itself waking up into a monstrous battlefield where dead allies, enemies and a dystopia being left stranded for days, the character on this album sees hallucinations, vivid memories and giving a introspective view of why civilization is turning into a everlasting war.
Now with that being said, the compositions for this record is truly sensational. Tracks such as Level 5, Sector Y, Zero and the absolute best song on the album being Meta which is captured into such cohesive, psychedelic, and almost a ambient atmosphere where you do feel lost in a trance just visualizing the lyrical content and brilliant compliments these instrumentals displayed is something I’ve always admired and give credit where its due respectively. Even first half on Ephemeral does have a progressive metal undertones where it pushes the boundaries to make these characteristics come to life and rest assured the craftsmanship is astonishing with how much effort and experience these musicians are able to unleash heaviness and emotion pouring their heart and soul is the most beautifully arranged releases I’ve experienced listening to the album front to back.
Even the artwork itself will give fans something to observe since it’s well worth mentioning the detail and encompassing moments will make your listening experience be worth every penny. Ephemeral may not be leaps and bounds a complete masterpiece by any means but those wanting to get their mindset cleared to hear a record with pure atmosphere and resonate the everlasting quality of progressive death metal should be able to find something interesting to their liking.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
